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Cited by 124Educational Games and GamificationEFL/ESL Teaching and LearningDigital Games and Media

Effect of Gamification on students' motivation and learning achievement in Second Language Acquisition within higher education: a literature review 2011–2019

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Azzouz Boudadi, Nadia, Gutiérrez-Colón, Mar·2020·The EuroCALL Review
DOI 10.4995/eurocall.2020.12974
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Abstract

This paper focuses on a fairly new motivational technique, the so-called Gamification, which consists of introducing game mechanics in non-game environments to promote motivation and engagement. By the turn of the 21rst century, Gamification took off in the business field and soon after became an attractive concept for researchers and professionals in education as it appears to be an increasingly popular method to motivate learners. Nevertheless, it is still a nascent field in terms of empirical evidence available to firmly support its educational benefits. This paper intends to shed some more light on this topic through a comprehensive review of literature published in the most prominent journals. The present study is framed within the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in higher education and Computer-Assisted Language Learning, and focuses on the effects of gamified learning environments on student’s motivation and learning. A Meta-analysis method was used to explore relevant empirical research published between 2011 and 2019. After reviewing a corpus of 68 papers drawn from the leading databases Scopus and Web Of Science, and from which only 15 could be included in the study, we can point out two main findings: (i) there is still very limited literature in the field of SLA and, (ii) results seem to be predominantly positive in terms of motivation and engagement but only a few studies confirm clear interconnections with learning outcomes. The results suggest a lack of solid correlations between Gamification, motivation and cognitive processes.

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  • Playing games increases motivation among learners.

    “Various studies have shown that playing games also increases motivation among learners (Boudadi and Gutiérrez-Colón, 2020; Saleem et al., 2022).”

    From Incidental vocabulary learning from digital games: the predictive role of game playing time, foreign language motivation, and anxiety (2026) · cites this paper as Boudadi and Gutiérrez-Colón, 2020

    The Introduction says game-like activities seem to keep second-language learners engaged and motivated, and Results and discussion reports positive engagement in several studies. The review primarily examines gamified learning tools and game elements, however, rather than establishing that playing games generally increases motivation among learners. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Research works printed but not linked: 36

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Azzouz Boudadi, N., & Gutiérrez-Colón, M.
ORCID
Azzouz Boudadi, Nadia
Venue
The EuroCALL Review
Publisher
Universitat Politecnica de Valencia
Published
2020-03-31
Volume
28
Issue
1
Pages
40
ISSN
1695-2618 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.4995/eurocall.2020.12974
OpenAlex
W3033047173
Cited by
124
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
FWCI
20.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • The EuroCALL Review (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Rovira & Virgili repository (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • RiuNet (Universitat Politècnica de València) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
Keywords
gamification, second language acquisition, student motivation, academic performance, game mechanics, computer-assisted language learning, student engagement, higher education

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